Study of Structural Characteristics of Ancient Bricks With Neutron Radiography Facility at BTRR

Abstract

Neutron radiography (NR) has been applied successfully to investigate different types of building materials, rock samples, sculptures, statues or monuments for since long. The utilization of neutron imaging for non-invasive investigations of cultural heritage objects is demonstrated on the example of ancient bricks found in Mahasthangarh and Sonargaon, two key archaeological sites in Bangladesh. The visualization of the internal structure of different brick samples, by means of Neutron Radiography (NR), has been experimented using the BTRR research reactor in Bangladesh - the only neutron imaging facility available in Bangladesh for R & D purposes. Manufacturing building materials have become a very good option for business in developing countries like Bangladesh. Among the non-destructive testing (NDT) techniques, neutron radiography is the most common procedure to identify light and organic materials, homogeneity, any inclusion or voids or cracks etc. inside the structure. The radiographic images in a dry condition for individual samples have been investigated. The image analysis was performed using ImageJ software and texture features were extracted using gray level co-occurrence matrix implemented by MATLAB for acquiring qualitative and quantitative information from this inspection technique at a high level of accuracy. The results obtained by neutron imaging provide the statement that the brick sample from Mahasthangarh is more homogeneous inside.